MSNBC Panel: Questions Over Bundy’s ‘Dinner Table Talk’ Have Been Settled

REID: "Earlier today Bundy appeared on a local radio show to not defend, mind you, but to respond. The short version, he didn't say black people were better off, he was just wondering if they were."

BUNDY: "You know, I'm wondering, are they happier now under this government subsidy system than they were when they were slaves and they was able to have their family structure together, and chickens and garden, and the people have something to do? And so in my mind, I'm wondering -- are they better off being slaves in that sense, or better off being slaves to the United States government in the sense of a subsidy? I'm wondering. That's what -- the statement was right. I am wondering."

REID: "The mind reels. Christie Thompson is an investigative reporter with Think Progress, and John Ralston is a political journalist in Nevada and host of Ralston Reports on on KSNV. And John I'm going to go straight to you on this. Damage control that isn't damage control. How much of a problem is the Bundy latest batch of comments, for instance, for somebody like Dean Heller?"
RALSTON: "Well as you said, Dean Heller gave the Times spokeswoman who did that statement, which I thought was hilarious, and how tortured it was that to say he disagrees in the most strenuous way -- he was pained, he did it in a strenous way there, Joy. But now we've answered the seminal question everyone wanted to know, what is dinner table talk like up on Bundy's ranch? They wonder about the plight of the negro, and whether slavery would have been better. These comments are -- they're almost a parody. I have to tell you the truth, Joy, when I first read them last night, I had to go back and read them again, because Adam Nagourney is one of the better reporters in the country. I thought I was reading a parody somewhere instead of Adam -- by the way, he taped it. And you know, Bundy first tried to back away from it, with Alex Jones, who has been all over this -- InfoWars, he's one of the far right crazies. First said he said it was taken out of context -- as if there was a proper context for that. They're all running away from him now, Governor Sandoval who initially criticized the BLM just put out a statement that said this doesn't represent the values of Nevadans. Of course it doesn't represent the values of anybody living generally in the year 2014. It's like there's this anachronistic community up on the Bundy ranch where they chat about how it would be better to be African-Americans to still be in slavery. As you say, Joy, the mind reels. And I think you're understating it."
REID: "No, indeed, it's sort of like is Adam Nagourney writing for the Onion now? You had to sort of do a double take as to whether it was real."